


Sharing the Fox

by freddiejoey



Category: Arthur of the Britons
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-30
Updated: 2011-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-23 06:50:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freddiejoey/pseuds/freddiejoey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Yorath got hold of Mark's cloak - we think</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharing the Fox

“So daughter, I will see you in a week yes?” Yorath knows that Rowena isn’t listening to him at all as he rides away from Arthur’s longhouse. She is already skipping inside, shivering with anticipation, yearning for the day to end. He may as well be a pillar of salt for all the notice she takes of his departing back. “Well, my little cup-smasher,” thinks Yorath wryly, kneeing his horse into a gallop, “you may not be the only one to frolic around before we return to my kingdom.”

The Cornish port is bustling and grimy as always. Yorath has never been fond of the place. But trade is essential for survival and a visit here must be endured every few seasons. And once your practical business has been satisfactorily concluded, there are other diversions to be savoured……..

Yorath is shrewd when it comes to bargaining and barter – and he has Fenred for support. His champion wrestler may not have defeated Mark of Cornwall at Arthur’s recent Games – yet Fenred is certainly an effective deterrent for any merchant who might be thinking of cheating with their weights and measures.

In fact, the Jutish trading activities are concluded much more quickly than Yorath had dared hope. So on to more pleasurable stimulating matters…………starting with a tour of every likely tavern along the disreputable sea front………

Rowena’s mother has been dead for so long now, that if her daughter did not clearly carry her stamp, Yorath might have had trouble sometimes recalling the exact colour of her hair and eyes. He had been in love with his wife yes, revered her even – but it had all somehow happened in another life. Moreover, a man cannot live by memories alone. Through the years, there have been many such trading expeditions as this to Cornwall – where particular……comforts have been made readily available.

For quite a while now there has been a friendly Jutish widow, with a wide smile, who has shared Yorath’s bed in a mutually obliging fashion. She is one of Rowena’s attendants and a motherly influence as well – although, truth be told, she has been known to encourage the flinging of tableware.

Besides – undoubtedly fond of each other as they are – she and Yorath also have a mutually satisfying understanding that under certain circumstances, certain liberties can be allowed. And this visit to Cornwall is undeniably one of those certain circumstances…………

The house to which Yorath eventually weaves his way is extremely familiar to him from previous expeditions. It is a discreet place, albeit quite sumptuously fitted up inside – and has been so since the days of Roman rule. The girls here are relatively clean and handsome – if by no means cheap in terms of coinage. They wear brightly coloured short tunics and long gold chains – that is when they deign to wear anything at all. And they smell like lavender……….

By now Yorath is utterly uproariously drunk. But alone – Fendred is lying in blissful inebriation, snoring amongst the rushes of the last tavern they frequented. However Yorath is not really sorry – it is often much easier to transact this sort of business alone since there will be no wagging tongues to placate afterwards.

He is well known to the rather raddled, heavily-painted woman who has run the establishment since time immemorial - and his tastes are well known too. Youthful, comely, plump, generous bosoms, preferably russet hair – and if the gods are feeling especially favourable: shaven down there so that it appears as white and milky as new-fallen snow.

Tonight Yorath’s luck is holding. The young woman awaiting him in a private room upstairs is all of these things - and more. She reclines in foxy splendour on a huge fleecy bed, smiling her welcome. Yorath’s fleshy mouth begins to water……..

For the next hour she rides him as enthusiastically as if she is one of his halter breakers and he is an untamed Jutish stallion. Yorath yells and roars in dazed jubilation, until collapsing in euphoric exhaustion. He is dozing happily off into stuporous slumber when he becomes aware that he and the auburn-haired beauty are not the only ones in the room any more – actually, in the large bed any more.

There is a strong musky male scent and the unmistakeable aroma of adder’s sting. Without opening his eyes Yorath can discern that the new occupant and the girl are busy fornicating on a corner of the mattress. He lies contentedly listening to their grunting and whimpering – until suddenly there is a slippery rasping down his backbone. A tongue – and not a smooth slender female one either……….

All at once Yorath is flooded with delicious reminiscences from his far youth – the long campaign trail, isolated camps in the mountains, raw young warriors huddling together against the cold and the mist……….It had only happened a few times, when he and a friend had been desperately afraid and even more lonely. But oh…….the wondrous warm sensations that these recollections evoke……..When he senses a questing rock-hard cock, snaking across his ample buttocks, Yorath remains completely still in mute invitation……….

It is almost midday when Yorath stirs the next day. His head is banging with a resounding thud but he feels relaxed and replete. Last night had been quite a night for an old fat tub of lard like himself. He stretches and smiles. The lusty red-head is obviously long gone, but the sweetness of her ardour still lingers.

Gradually Yorath becomes conscious of a low rhythmic whistling close beside him. So the previous evening's unseen co-conspirator snoring softly then. Well, he had better move himself before the fellow – whoever he is – wakes up. It would never do for the King of the Jutes to be recognized at this late stage of the game.

Yorath sits up, rolls over – and descends into the furtherest pit of Hades, the dungeon home of doomed souls, drowning in the river of lamentation, being ferried by Charon............Lying beside him in resplendent nudity is Mark of Cornwall, still emanating that powerful musky odour, still reeking of adder's sting..............

Thankfully Yorath will never exactly remember what happened next. How he grabbed the first available item of clothing within reach, wrapped it around his rotund girth and hurtled for the door – stopping only to retrieve his sword. How he startled a group of semi-clad ladies wandering around the house in various stages of disarray, resting after their arduous endeavours. How he tripped over Fenred who was lurking hopefully in the garden and screamed at him to immediately bring their horses and goods to the back entrance on pain of death............

Kai stumbles blearily out of Leesa's hut, as a horse comes galloping furiously through the palisade gate. Still unsteady from too much mead – and too much acrobatic other things from the night before – he catches only a quick glimpse of a familiar cloak – wine red with a light green lining, with a double disc clasp and heavy chain. “Hello Mark”, he shouts with false bravado, groaning inwardly.................

Inside the longhouse Arthur hears his brother's supposedly jaunty greeting - and groans in agreement. Wrapped around him is Rowena – and still wrapped around one slender wrist is the thin binding they had used last night in pursuit of...................inspiration. They had hoped to reprise the game this afternoon in the woods – only this time Arthur would tie her to the horse first.............Now with Mark arriving there will no opportunity for any such indulgence...............

Rowena sobs all the way home. She was promised seven days and her father has descended, like a deranged fiend, and bundled her off after barely four. He won't give a satisfactory explanation either. Let him sit there on his fat horse then, all puffed-up and stony-faced. Hell is going to break asunder as soon as they reach Yorath's village............

By midday, peace and contentment have fallen upon the longhouse again. Lenni is smiling as she stirs the stewing chicken over the hearth. With Llud still away visiting Rolf for the next few days and Rowena despatched north again, Leesa's reign has come to a definitive end. The little healer would be less happy if she knew that, half a world away, a haughty Roman princess was embarking on a voyage that would wreak havoc from the ridge above the village – far more than ecstatic if she could guess that, a little more than a year later, she will fall asleep on a rainy night grasping something warm and wonderful that will change her world forever.........

Under cover of the table, Arthur slips his hand joyfully into Kai's. Binding romps are diverting but ultimately perhaps overrated. As too, muses Kai, are acrobatics. Brown eyes gaze into blue, utterly, irrevocably, rapturously in love – while Lenni makes frantic gestures to remind them to eat their chicken while it is still hot.............

In time, Yorath grows quite fond of the cloak. Despite the loss of every bowl and cup and pitcher from his longhouse on reaching home, he can cast no aspersions on the garment. It is warm and thick and copious – obviously designed for a fuller figure like his own. And the chain and clasp are sturdy and attractive. The rest of that unfortunate episode he manages to black out fairly successfully – it was merely a bad dream, a hallucination, an illusion............... When Arthur and Cerdig are trying to negotiate a treaty a few months later, he wears the cloak proudly and it is much admired.

He does not actually encounter Mark of Cornwall again until Rowena's wedding – after an interval of two or more years (and for reasons he will never fully choose to fathom, he elects to leave the green cloak at home.)

At the marriage feast that night, Yorath notices the most boastful ruler in the west grinning at him in a rather amused and somehow suggestive manner – but then Mark has always been a silly fool, entranced with the sound of his own voice and the quality of his own humour. It is true that, after retiring, Yorath suffers the worst, most repellent nightmare he can ever recall – one in which Mark somehow features prominently – but he puts it down to an overindulgence of mead and a surfeit of Lenni's excellent yet extremely spicy baked eel


End file.
